If there is a mistrial, then that just means we have to do this all over again, right? Would Nelson want to subject himself to that torment, or would it be a good idea because he would get a chance for a do-over while knowing exactly what tricks the prosecution will pull?
Nelson must feel like he's seeded the jury with reasonable doubt, and my thinking on this is due to the fact that he only called witnesses for what, two days? IIRC there were a bunch of people on Tuesday including the use-of-force expert and then Based Rhodesian was the only witness yesterday. I am surprised that he didn't call a
midget cardiologist of his own, but maybe he felt like deep dicking the prosecution's guy on the cross was enough. And Nelson's power move was always going to be shitting up the prosecution's case and getting them to look like clowns playing whack-a-mole with shit like whether Squad 320 was running or not.
There are a lot of questions that I guess we will never get answers to. Did we ever get anyone to say whether Floyd pissed himself or not? Did anyone ever testify about whether Floyd busted his lip in the back of the car? What happened with the week-long hospital stay? But I guess if there's a mistrial or the case goes to appeal then Nelson's got some dry powder for that. Or maybe it's a 4D chess move where the jury is going to be sitting there thinking about all the loose strings (really, was that squad car running or not???) and they're going to pin the blame for a lot of that shit on the prosecution.
My overall impression is that Nelson came off as polite to the witnesses (even when they were beclowning themselves), tried to keep his questions straightforward and to the point, and didn't waste everyone's time. I think most importantly, he didn't try to come off like he was smarter (i.e. "better") than anyone on the stand. Yeah, he could drag it out for another week, but that might be counterproductive.
The prosecution, meanwhile, started off strong but spent a lot of their time for the last week and a half making appeals to emotion, using rhetorical tricks, objecting for the sake of objecting, being generally hostile to the witnesses, and going down bunny trails. For example, during yesterday's questioning of Based Rhodesian, the prosecution asked him if he was a pulmonologist and when he said no they asked him how much time he'd spent prior to the trial measuring potential lung volume of an airborne swallow carrying a coconut and all that shit and it's like.... why didn't you ask Felonious all that shit too 'cause you'd get the same answer. It was an attempt to make Based Rhodesian look stupid but it came off as gratuitous.
Chuck Rosenberg on MSNBC has said consistently throughout the trial that the prosecution needs to build their case brick-by-brick, so using the witnesses who were at the scene to introduce evidence worked very well for the prosecution at the outset. The foundation they created was pretty sturdy. They made the assembled crowd seem like a group of well-intentioned citizens who were justifiably upset at what appeared from their limited perspective to be a clear-cut case of police brutality. But then the prosecution got cocky, threw out the blueprints, and are now left with a structure three walls short of a brick shithouse.
Nelson, meanwhile, spent a quarter of the time digging a hole in the ground that's a perfectly good long-drop-cum-tiger-trap.
